Teaching New Literacies in Grades K-3 Resources for 21st-Century Classrooms

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Even the youngest readers and writers in today’s classrooms can benefit enormously from engagement with a wide range of traditional and nontraditional texts. This teacher-friendly handbook is packed with creative strategies for introducing K–3 students to fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling; Web-based and multimodal texts; hip-hop; advertisements; math problems; and many other types of texts. Prominent authorities explain the research base underlying the book’s 23 complete lessons and provide practical activities and assessments for promoting decoding, fluency, comprehension, and other key literacy skills. Snapshots of diverse classrooms bring the material to life; helpful reproducibles are included.

Barbara Moss, PhD, is Professor of Education in the Department of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. She has taught English and language arts in elementary, middle, and high school settings, and has worked as a reading supervisor and coach. Her research focuses on issues related to the teaching of informational texts at the elementary and secondary levels. Dr. Moss has served in leadership roles in the International Reading Association and has published numerous journal articles, columns, book chapters, and books.

Diane Lapp, EdD, is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Department of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. She has taught elementary and middle school and currently works as an 11th- and 12th-grade English teacher. Her research and instruction focus on issues related to struggling readers and writers who live in economically deprived urban settings, and their families and teachers. Dr. Lapp has published numerous journal articles, columns, chapters, books, and children’s materials. She has received the International Reading Association’s Outstanding Teacher Educator of the Year award, among other honors, and is a member of both the California and the International Reading Halls of Fame.

Introduction

p. 1

Teaching the Genres

Teaching with Folk Literature in the Primary Grades

p. 13

Every Story Has a Problem: How to Improve Student Narrative Writing in Grades K-3

p. 26

Poetry Power: First Graders Tackle Two-Worders

p. 45

Using Readers' Theater to Engage Young Readers

p. 57

Junior Journalists: Reading and Writing News in the Primary Grades

p. 71

Using Procedural Texts and Documents to Develop Functional Literacy in Students: The Key to Their Future in a World of Words

p. 84

Going Beyond Opinion: Teaching Primary Children to Write Persuasively

p. 97

Reading Biography: Evaluating Information across Texts

p. 108

Teaching Other Genres

Using Comic Literature with Elementary Students

p. 119

Using Primary-Source Documents and Digital Storytelling as a Catalyst for Writing Historical Fiction